An Italian son has been accused of dressing up as his dead mother in an effort to claim her pension while her body was hidden at home.

The 56-year-old man, an unemployed nurse from Mantua, reportedly managed to claim thousands of euros before his act was exposed.

He had also allegedly hidden the dead body of his mother, Graziella Dall’Oglio, at the family home until it had become mummified.

Ms Dall’Oglio passed away around three years ago at the age of 82, according to Italy‘s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

But her son failed to officially report her death and instead wrapped her body in a sheet, stuffed it into a sleeping bag and hid it in the house.

He then allegedly dressed up as his mother, complete with lipstick, foundation and a pearl necklace, before setting out to renew her identity card in a government office in the suburb of Borgo Virgilio.

The son had reportedly cut his hair so it would fall in a similar style to his late mother’s.

He underwent a ‘Mrs Doubtfire-style transformation’, the paper said, referring to the 1993 movie starring Robin Williams.

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Graziella Dall’Oglio (pictured) passed away around three years ago at the age of 82

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Her 56-year-old son, an unemployed nurse from Mantua, reportedly  managed to claim thousands of euros before his act was exposed

The man arrived at the government office on the outskirts of Mantua earlier this month, where he presented himself as Ms Dall’Oglio.

But his blatant deception raised the suspicions of one employee, who realised there was something peculiar about the ‘woman’ – including their thick neck and deep voice.

The member of staff quickly reported the incident to police and even alerted the local mayor.

Authorities compared official photographs of the real Ms Dall’Oglio to those of her son and realised they had been duped.

The son had been reeling in an annual income of around €53,000 (£47,000) thanks to his mother’s pension as well as a property portfolio of three houses, as per the paper.

Following his being caught, police went to his home where they stumbled across the gruesome discovery of Ms Dall’Oglio’s deceased body hidden in the laundry room.

‘He came into the council offices wearing a long skirt, he was wearing lipstick and nail varnish, a necklace and old-style earrings,’ Francesco Aporti, the mayor of Borgo Virgilio, told the newspaper.

‘But up close his neck was too thick and his wrinkles were strange, the skin on his hands did not seem to be that of an 85-year-old woman.

‘His voice was feminine but every so often it dipped and sounded masculine. But I might not have noticed these strange features had they not been pointed out.’

Once his fraud had been uncovered, police informed him that they needed to inspect his home.

‘He agreed to that. They searched the house and found a mummified body,’ the mayor said. ‘She probably died of natural causes but that will be established by the postmortem. It is a very strange story and very, very sad.’

In a statement, Italy’s military police said the mother’s body was wrapped in bed sheets and a sleeping bag.

‘The body was in a clear state of mummification,’ they said.

The corpse was then taken to the mortuary of a local hospital for a postmortem to be conducted.

The son is now being investigated for illegally concealing a body and benefit fraud.